Yesterday was the birthday of two wonderful people – my sister and my friend Elizabeth. My sister lives in South Carolina, Elizabeth is here in Seattle and in her honor we journeyed to Safeco Field to watch the Mariners play baseball.
This is the birthday girl – Elizabeth.
She organized all of us to arrive in one place on opening day for her birthday months before because she is brilliant like that.
Some of us cared less about the baseball and a bit more about our food options. I might just have been one of those people.
But when you have a whole stadium to work with why settle for just a preztle and garlic fries?
My stadium explorations resulted in the standard finds but not without a few moments where I wanted to accoust some poor stranger and ask them if I could photograph their food. I even tried to do this at the very stand where I ordered my own food – but everyone ducked for cover when I asked it it was OK to photograph them.
Instead I am left with a few shots of my food and no words to explain the joy that comes from congregating with a large group of friends and people in one place for the sake of a cause like common friendship. And here is a poem for day 9 of National Poetry Month.
Baseball and Friends
From up here in the 300 level there are very small men in white on a green field.
They run and throw and bat at a tiny ball invisible to us except for replays on the jumbo-tron.
We cheer and our neighboring seat section starts the wave.
Alone at first they stand just three of them yelling woooo!
Then the row below joins in – then the people in the seats above and then an entire cascade of humans standing up and sitting down circles the stadium again and again.
We eat peanuts, pizza, bratwurst, garlic fries, sweet potato fries, nachos, pulled-pork nachos, hotdogs and drink beer.
The game goes by inning by inning.
We enjoy each other's company.
It is a good view from here.